If you live in a particularly humid environment, you might not think about all that moisture very often, but it can cause some serious damage to your cameras and lenses in the long-term. If you live in such an area, a dry cabinet can protect your gear, and this excellent video will show you both how they are used and why they are beneficial.
Coming to you from PIXEL VIILAGE, this great video will show you how use a dry cabinet and why they are so beneficial for certain climates. Essentially, a dry cabinet is a standard storage cabinet paired with a dehumidifier to keep the inside at a certain humidity. Nicer models will also often come with things like lighting. The entire purpose of reducing the humidity of your gear's storage environment is to prevent things like the growth of fungus, which can ruin lenses. You only need to hop on eBay and look at vintage lenses to see how many of them fall prey to fungus that affects image quality. If you do not live in a significantly humid environment, you probably do not need a dry cabinet, but if you live somewhere where the air is frequently saturated or near it, it is definitely worth considering one. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
Not saying that's a bad idea, but I've been shooting for over 20 years and have never used a dry cabinet and my gear is just fine. Of course I'm not using the same gear for 20 years. LOL
So you may fall under the category of "If you do not live in a significantly humid environment, you probably do not need a dry cabinet..."
Camera bag with dry silica bags in the closet works well and less space. Save that Moni!
I kept my older AF-D and AF-S Nikkors in Pelican cases and i just recently learned how indidious fungus is when i attempted to sell them. Could only get offers on 5 of the 12 lens. The rest were unsalable due to the presence of fungus.
Get yourself an Eva-Dry on Amazon for about $15.00. They are compact and reusable. I place one inside my Underwater Kinetics hard case and have never had a problem with moisture/fungus since, and I live in a very hot/humid place.
I used an Ikea Billy with the optional glass shelves and drawers. I used foam weather stripping to make it somewhat air (and dust!) tight. Then, I installed four halogen under-cabinet light fixtures, two through the top, and two below the middle (wood) shelf. I took the "UV FILTER" cover off the halogens for a bit of additional fungal fighting. As one more bit of insurance, I put every packet of silica gel I've ever received in there — after toasting them in an oven at the lowest temperature, to make sure they were active.
End result is that it is kept slightly warmer than room temperature — plus, I can see all my gear, which you can't do in Pelican boxes or camera bags full of silicon gel!
Using this system, I have <b>never</b> experienced fungus, in some 30+ years in the Pacific NorthWet.
Due to a sudden move, I've recently had to relinquish this system, but am about to re-create it, using a lovely china cabinet I got from the ReStore.
I <b>love</b> being able to see all my gear, rather than having to root through camera bags for it!